It was odd to realise that I had over 30,000km more to go this trip, yet less sectors to fly than the last MCO trip.

The next flight was a freebie, which I've noticed can sometimes be upgraded, even though not on ual.com. A couple of 500-milers at checkin secured me a nice first class seat, and its value greatly exceeded my expectations.

UA965 SEA-LAX 752 3A 23/2/05 1210-1439 (actual 1217-1419)

This was one of my best short trips on UA ever. Our main FA was quite old, but one of the really good ones. She made everyone feel welcome, smiled a lot, did the lunch orders correctly, etc. Hot mixed nuts were served, then I had the turkey foccacia for lunch, followed later by hot towels. All top quality service. My seatmate was a lovely woman who was great fun to talk to, so we chatted for the whole flight. She imports products into the US from very close to home. How close? She gave me a sample and I was able to recognise the suburb as Richmond from the phone number. It's a few kms from where I live. We both ordered Amaretto, to each other's surprise. After all, hardly anyone orders the Amaretto. She even has a friend who goes to science fiction conventions.

At LAX, I had to go to the Tom Bradley terminal, for the first time in many years. My first surprise was that the air outside didn't immediately taste of smog. I walked along and saw the shuttle for other terminals, but it had a faulty wheelchair ramp and beeping like crazy while trying to let a guy in a wheelchair on, so I decided to walk.

Bradley isn't all bad. Walked past the luggage screening areas, which are where they should be, out in the open. Checkin was quick, then off to the LH lounge. At the TSA checkpoint, the sheeple in front of me had taken their shoes off, but I asked the TSA bloke if they do the obsessive shoe thing. He asked what I meant. "Making everyone take their shoes off", I said. "Only if there's metal in them", he replied. So I walked through without that hassle. TSA inconsistency strikes again. Why can't SEA, SFO, IAD, DCA, etc, still be like LAX?

The LH lounge is crap: Tiny, hardly any power points, no bathroom, no showers, few snacks. Looked like most other lounges were similarly bad though.

LH453 LAX-MUC 343 4A 1640-1300+1 (actual 1641-1309+1)

As everyone had checked in, they decided to board early, hence our takeoff a minute after scheduled departure.

LH is just so odd. The cabin design is a mixture of stunning brilliance and abject stupidity. The seats are very nifty, with electonic controls and great flexibility, but there is no space on the floor at all when in the flat sleeping position, and only effectively 4 overhead bins for 12 people! This was the first airline seat I've been able to sleep fully stretched out on, but the headrest sticks up more than I find comfortable.

The cabin design is very modern, yet there are no individual air vents, so even if the temperature is okay, it's easy to be uncomfortably hot, as there is almost no air flow at all. There's a storage area for shoes, but it's hard to fit 2 shoes into it. The headphones live in their own storage area and fit there far better than on ones head. The power points are supposed to be for laptops, yet you need an adapter for a standard Dell power cable.... Some silliness about how much power they draw. Amazing, since mine's a few years old and draws much less power than some.

There are about 15 channels of movies, but the only interesting ones I've already seen on UA. Last time I flew LH, they played crappy movies about 9 months after all the other airlines showed them. Now they are only 2-3 months out of date. I guess this is an improvement.

Dinner was quite good. The cold duck pancakes were better than they sounded. The beef main course was good, though the rice pilaf with cherries wasn't something I'd choose to accompany it. Hot towels were lovely, piping hot. If LH can use metal cutlery, why can't UA?

Flynet is a great concept and the portal to news isn't bad. However, it's in need of some more testing, since it constantly says "Your flight-nr.: 1FR4W; Airspeed 1852 kmh" and some pages don't work. Apart from news, the portal is lame. It doesn't include anything good, such as flyertalk.com, but I suggested in the survey that they should. I didn't try the internet connection, because I wanted to sleep instead of play online.

Oddly enough, LH FAs seem the slackest and least safety-conscious I've seen. People wander all over the cabin while the fasten seatbelts sign is on and they do absolutely nothing about it.

Brunch included one of those strange egg-coloured splodges, but it was piping hot and quite okay. Lots of rolls and croissants were available, thought the German pax seemed to avoid the croissants. Is this some anti-French thing?

After a zig-zag approach looking down at blinding white snow-covered ground, we landed at MUC. I made my way to the LH lounges for a refreshing showing and a nibble. There was some good German fare there, including sausages and apple strudel. I had the latter. Unfortunately, there is no free internet access here. Vodafone seem to have covered the airport with overpriced access points.

LH4916 MUC-BHX AR8 2A 24/2/05 1525-1640 (actual 1539-1627)

An RJ85? Hmmm. Looked like an old BAe146 to me. This was one of those flights where "gate" means the place you assemble to go downstairs to a bus, which is rather chilly when it's sub-zero outside and you are dressed to be comfortable in warm airports and overheated planes. Quite refreshing, though, in a way. It was less than half full in C, but almost full in Y. We received massive cold refresher towels, much like the ones fast food places have, but about 15 times larger.

Food service also resembled a fast food restaurant in some respects: Cold cuts of beef with white gunk on it, cold spaghetti with carrot bits and tiny orange eyeball things, with, for dessert, a white chalky-looking blob with brown dust squares on top and a snot-coloured sauce surrounding it.

On arrival, I caught the exorbitant train (7.20GBP for a distance which would cost maybe 1/4 that at home) to Hinckley. My line was the only one running late, and by about an hour, but this mattered little, since the trains are about an hour apart.

My mind was kind of hazy for the train trip from Birmingham New St to Hinckley. On arrival, the sea of rapidly moving business types with briefcases disappeared into the night. Three people with luggage remained in the station carpark, all looking distinctly not like locals. We were all destined for the same place, so we caught a cab and were off to Redemption '05.